I am delighted to be writing in the Politician’s Opinion Column for the first time this year. I will start off with the very exciting news...

Election News

SYP Elections were meant to kick off on 15th March and ending on the 29th March. However, there will be no election in the Cowdenbeath Constituency due to there being no other candidates standing… this means that I will remain in my role as the Member of the Scottish Youth Parliament until 2021, so another two years. I’m very excited about this and I look forward to continuing my great work, which I have been doing since 2017.

WRTS

I have been working, in capacity as youth member on the Education & Children’s Services Committee, on the controversial ‘Walked Routes to School’ policy that we are looking to introduce in Fife. As it stood, this policy would see our pupils walking unsafe routes to school, with no consideration of the accident data, gradient or if they’re from a deprived area. Pupils would’ve also been denied the right to appeal any decision or route, leaving the sole responsibility with parents / carers. I, along with Cllr Linda Erskine, have been working to have changes made to the policy, and the assessment itself. I am looking forward to the continuation of the Scrutiny Committee, on Tuesday 26th February and I hope councillors will make the right decision, for our young people.

ACEs

I look forward to continuing my work on Adverse Childhood Experience’s in the coming year with colleagues from the SYP and the Scottish Government and the third sector. I shall attend the annual children and young people’s meeting with the Scottish Cabinet to raise awareness of ACEs and try and have some changes in practice and the law by the government.

BYOD

Bring Your Own Device Imitative is continuing to progress all across Fife, after a successful pilot progress. St Andrew’s and Inverkeithing HS are leading ahead in the constituency, with the hope that this will lead to Lochgelly, Beath and St Columba’s HS having BYOD installed in their buildings, ensuring equity across the county for all pupils.

LHS

The work of the Pupil Improvement Committee is continuing to go from strength to strength. We have lay forth our Improvement Plan, which we hope to take forward over 2019, before revisiting this for 2020. We are looking forward to the year ahead, improving the school for young people.

If any young person (12-25) has an issue/concern they’d like me to raise, or wants to know more about my work, please get in touch by emailing Bailey-Lee.Robb.MSYP@sypmail.org.uk or following me on Twitter: @BaileyLeeMSYP.